About us
The mission of the NEO Contemporary Art Space is to become an exhibition space for the world’s foremost contemporary fine artists in Budapest’s Városliget. In search of an international parallel, it is perhaps the Serpentine Gallery in London’s Kensington Gardens park, whose mission is the closest to that embraced by NEO in regard to location, appearance and function alike.
NEO operates within the organisational framework of the Városliget Zrt. and under the professional mentoring of the Museum of Fine Arts Budapest. Together with the Museum of Fine Arts, the Műcsarnok/Kunsthalle and the New National Gallery (to be built in the near future), NEO is an important element with a special mission in the unique and colourful fine art complex of institutions embedded in Városliget.
The 350-square-metre exhibition space in the House of the Hungarian Millennium provides the opportunity to present a wide spectrum of contemporary works and installations. It is among the objectives of NEO to build active professional cooperation with higher education institutions of art. In addition, the art space places major emphasis on the educational dissemination of the arts; in order to realise this, it organises guided tours and museum education workshops for all age groups.
All of our exhibitions so far clearly reflect our commitment: we have presented the works of internationally acclaimed artists, including the painter Szabolcs Bozó and video artist Bill Viola, as well as selections from major collections – for example, an exhibition organised from the holdings of the Hungarian Museum of Photography – and one of William Kentridge’s eight-channel video installations.
All of this demonstrates our dedication to bringing the forefront of international and domestic contemporary art to the City Park. Standing out among our programmes designed to promote social awareness and community participation was the social project titled Sounds of Silence, a collaborative video exhibition featuring hearing-impaired and hearing young people alike, created jointly by the lecturers and students of the Media Design Department of MOME, the School for the Deaf and students from the Ottokár Prohászka Catholic Secondary School. Using the tool of art, the project explored the themes of silence and noise, solitude and community as well as suffering and catharsis, while establishing a truly integrated creative community.
The exhibition On Our Paths: With You was realised through the collaboration of the House of the Hungarian Millennium – NEO Contemporary Art Space, the Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design Budapest, and the Movement Development Primary and Secondary School, Standardised Special Education Methodological Institute (Mozgásjavító EGYMI), with the support of the Hungarian Paralympic Committee. The aim of the six months of joint work was to dismantle the invisible barriers surrounding people with physical disabilities and to sensitise visitors to the importance of inclusion, empathy and working together. The MOME students and the pupils of Mozgásjavító created walkable, interactive installations in a collaborative process, using art to depict the everyday lives and imaginative worlds of children with mobility impairments. Staged at three venues – Mozgásjavító EGYMI, the House of the Hungarian Millennium and a so-called story-trail connecting the two – the exhibition became a symbol of dialogue, collective reflection and social openness.
NEO is not merely an exhibition space: it is a living platform where art, community and society engage in dialogue and where visitors can actively participate in contemporary artistic thought and experiences.